They like to commend me on my lack of appetite for sweets. For those of you who know me personally, you understand precisely how bizarre a turn of events this is for me, and that it must be dictated by pregnancy hormones, because I would rarely pass up on the opportunity for dessert, or something sweet, no matter the reason, occasion or time of day.

People say what a Good Thing (TM) it is, that I don’t want a lot of sweet foods these days. They congratulate me, like it’s some sort of moral achievement or personal victory.

Newsflash: I’m just eating what my body tells me, just like I did before I got pregnant. It’s called Intuitive Eating, folks.

The problem that is tangled up with all this is the (erroneous) assumption that there are Good Foods (TM) and Bad Foods (TM). I can assure you, that from the standpoint of a pregnant woman’s stomach, the only bad foods are the ones that sound like they’d do a number on my digestion, i.e., foods that would not be the best choices for me at the moment.

That, however, is absolutely NOT what is meant by Good and Bad Foods (TM).

We have somehow come to this notion that foods have some sort of moral value. If it’s something you’d eat to try to lose weight, it’s Good (TM). If it’s something you’d be told to avoid on a diet, it’s Bad (TM).

Food doesn’t have moral value. It has nutritional value. Any food. Anything that your body can derive energy from (described as “calories”) is food, and if your body can fuel itself with it, then it’s got nutritional value.

I see, so often, in discussions of FA/HAES, this formulation when discussing Intuitive Eating or refuting the Good/Bad Food assumption:

“Sometimes I eat X, sometimes I eat Y.”

In these instances, the given value of X is “some food associated with good health and/or dieting” and the given value of Y is “some food associated with poor health and/or fat shaming”. I don’t think that FA advocates are missing the point when they use this phrasing — I think it’s an attempt to communicate with others who are still under the delusion that some foods are morally good while others are not*, when all that distinction is used for is trying to bully people who don’t fit the mainstream ideal “Thin” into complying, or to bully folks who DO fit the ideal into continuing to comply.

There’s something complicated in all this too — about keeping people in line, oppressed, although I can’t quite tease it out yet.

So, if I say, as I might in normal conversation, “I don’t really want any Y; I don’t have much of a sweet tooth these days” — that is precisely what I mean: Food Y doesn’t appeal to me at the moment, thanks. It has nothing to do with any moral value others may ascribe to Food Y, nor does it stem from any desire of mine except what my stomach dictates.

Believe me, I miss sweets. I can’t wait until half a cup of homemade pudding doesn’t give me heartburn, or the thought of chocolate cake doesn’t turn my stomach or simply not appeal at all. I take no particular delight, as others seem to expect me to, in the fact that I can’t enjoy the foods I loved before I was pregnant.

There is no “side benefit” to not wanting dessert. I don’t want to lose weight. I’ve long since given up on the dieting myths that say self-deprivation is the way to socially-accepted health status. My goal is my actual health — not some outside view of what that should look like.

This is Fat Acceptance. This is Health At Every Size. That I get to define, for myself, what healthy feels like, and do what I consider the best things to achieve and maintain that health. Weight is an arbitrary number, and size is not an automatic indicator of health. I’m more healthy now, because I listen to my body and do what it tells me it needs to do, than when I was starving myself in high school or trying to avoid the candy dish so as not to top 150 lbs.

Because I love my body, and want it to last a long time, I do what it indicates is good for me, instead of trying to force it to be one way or another. I, and my health, are much better for it.

I’ll take the support, JadeWolf and tanglethis. Thanks for the compliment(s)! Sometimes I have a hard time articulating myself, so it’s good to find out when it works.

Still eating, thinking, and loving yourself: all important things.

Most definitely. I’ve been spending a lot of time in thought, and less in reading/writing, but my energy is getting better now (after the first trimester) so that the expression of some of my thoughts can come out now.

Admittedly, most of my energy has been directed at taking care of my pregnant self, getting food, sleep and so forth. It’s good to take time to dust off the brain.

I am so glad that I have gotten a grounding in HAES pre-pregnancy, or I would have been swayed by weight-gain limits and ZOMG You Have To Lose Your Baby Weight garbage.

My body will be how it will be. I’ll take care of it, and try to keep it healthy, and try to trust it. I could care less whether I end up 25 lbs. heavier or 25 lbs. lighter after the baby, or exactly the same weight.

Having been pregnant twice now and delivered once, I can tell you the the idea of getting back to ‘normal’ can be very powerful. I remember feeling so liberated when I got pregnant the first time because I could eat whatever I wanted whenever because I could blame it on being pregnant. I could get ‘fat’ and noone could say a damn thing. It was bizarre! Then again, I hadn’t heard of FA or HAES.
Thank you for posting this up and articulating your thoughts so well. 🙂 Here’s hoping you have a good labour and delivery! ❤

Your comment is inspiring another post, so I’ll put the short version here, before it turns into a novel. ^_^

I remember feeling so liberated when I got pregnant the first time because I could eat whatever I wanted whenever because I could blame it on being pregnant. I could get ‘fat’ and noone could say a damn thing.

I’ve been telling people that I’m grateful to be pregnant for the first time now, at 30, and not at 20 or 25. I would have been ‘less prepared’ is what I say, but FA is part of what I mean.

I heard of FA/HAES sometime in the last year, and I’d been working on accepting my body as it was for about a year before that. Since I now have some practice in my ‘normal’ life fighting fat shaming (which, as I’m tall, I don’t get from outside people, mainly just from family and, well, the usual media outlets), I don’t have to think about it like “Wow! I’m pregnant! Now I can eat whatever I want!” because I have been eating whatever I want for the last almost two years.

It’s quite a different experience, coming from that direction, and something that some of my relatives don’t understand.